


atomic conversion

by Smercy



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smercy/pseuds/Smercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an incomplete list of witchcraft-related transgressions, seductions, and acts of godless mayhem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	atomic conversion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HopefulNebula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/gifts).



HOW TO BECOME A WITCH

witches are not born. they are made. how do you make them?  
witches have treaties with the magisterium.  
witches have laws.  
witches have rules.  
witches have policies that seem like laws but are just in place to protect themselves (don't fall in love with a woman.)  
if you want to have a child, you have to love the man you're fucking.  
if you find a witch girl-child, you must take her. even if she is not yours. you must take her.  
a girl may ask to become a witch. that wish may be granted, even if she has no witchblood in her.  
hundreds of years ago the church decreed that any knowledge that girls could volunteer to become a witch must be suppressed. the witches didn't especially care, since the girls who would become witches would volunteer themselves even without knowing it was possible. a few decades later, a smirking man gave a book to a visiting witch. she read it and found that it was the story of a girl who set out to become a witch but realized that they were all sinful degenerates and she would much rather be a proper wife instead. that witch came back to the bookstore with fire arrows at night while they slept. screaming, because she couldn't contain it. and the two bodies were nearly at war until the church conceded that they would let that knowledge out. they changed the story so that witches became monsters, you must be very careful what you tell a witch or she'll think you want to become one like her and steal you away in the night.   
yambe akka is the name of the death witch.  
there will be a scene where the process of becoming a witch is described in second person.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS:  
-letter from mary to her mother explaining that she's run away with witches  
-advertisement for “the tragedy of magdalene miller” (a play so scandalous it's been banned everywhere! watch a woman make out with a woman pretending to be a witch.)   
-newspaper article talking about politician who might not be nominated to influential position because of accusations that he fathered a child with a witch  
-article reviewing the book how to avoid ensnarement by sinful heathen witches (jump into a volcano!)  
-daemonology? (maybe included in newspaper article?) birds, fish, insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals. (invertebrates?) (sea mammals, land mammals, domesticated mammals, carnivores, rodents, grazers, primates, marsupials)

NAMES!  
zitomira – to live famously  
zocha – wisdom, bonifacy – well-doer  
lovisa – battle noise  
markku – rebellious, rasmus – beloved, stian – wanderer  
umut – hope  
uvid – insight (zocha's daemon)

MARY SCENE:  
mary is sitting on the roof of her building, which is very dirty but she's brought a blanket. she went up there to study, but really to cry. she's hiding by the chimney so nobody can see her, and the night has just started to get dark, and her daemon soren is a firefly. her mom has been planning her 13th birthday party, the one where she'll start on the marriage market. most of her classmates' daemons have settled by now, but mary hasn't. and it's stupid to be worrying because the season doesn't officially start until the summer. but she doesn't want to get married. she thinks about it and feels sick. she doesn't fit. she doesn't fit in the city or in school or with her parents and she doesn't know where she should go but she knows that she shouldn't be here. knows with all her heart. and she wants to fly. proper young ladies aren't allowed that sort of thing, of course. she's not even allowed to go to the aviary.   
so she is sitting with a book open on her lap, not reading, looking at the sky as her daemon glows. and then a bird shows up, but it isn't a proper bird. anyway, it's uvid.   
mary doesn't want to get married. (she's one of seven marys in her class. they call her eyebrows. they're very distinctive, actually. mary's mom clucks over them and says she'll grow into it or anyway there's always tweezers. mary likes them just as they are, they make her glares look the scariest.)  
there's a conversation with uvid, or something. anyway, zocha shows up and tells mary about trains that she can take as a woman alone to go to a new place. when she's older. gives her the name of a man to contact. mary's daemon turns into a fat little pigeon, the only bird they've ever seen up close. and mary tries to be brave so she thanks zocha but ends up saying “but I want to fly” instead.   
so zocha says that mary can run away and become a witch. she goes away to visit her sister's son, who has been moved to the city as a punishment by her father. witches hate cities. the witch sister doesn't go to visit her son because if she sees his father then she will be compelled to kill him and then there will be nobody left to raise her son and she loves him too much for that fate. when her son is grown, of course, revenge will be had.   
uvid stays behind with mary and soren as they pack their things. it isn't much. witches apparently don't need things. mary spends most of the time tidying her room and writing a letter to her mom.   
dear mom,  
I have run away to become a witch. I met a witch tonight and asked her if she would take me to where the witches live so that I can be a witch too and she said yes so that is where I am going. I promise I haven't been kidnapped. I know that this will be very disappointing and you will miss me and I think I will miss you too but I'm not good at being a girl and I think I will be better at being a witch or at least will like it more. I think that if you were here you would say that I am making a rash decision and should not go but I am not like you and witches get to make rash decisions so that is why I am leaving with them. also because I do not want to get married ever. and anyway I would make a terrible wife so you should be happy for the man who would have been stuck with me as his awful wife but he can find somebody better now. the witch who is taking me says that it will be a long time before I can see you again, but you were talking about sending me to out of state finishing school and that is almost the same thing except that I will be happy. and I promise I have not been seduced, I have wanted this forever. and this is not a trap that was written by pirates. the witch who is taking me said that she has proof. on next friday at 3 o'clock there will be a rainbow stretching from the lighthouse to the highest church steeple that will make the whole city look like it has a crown. when you see that rainbow you will know that I am happy and probably flying around on a broomstick.   
please do not think that you have been a bad mother. you have been a very good mother and I have always had plenty to eat and not had to worry about anything. but I have been an awful daughter, and I will be better at being a witch.   
love,  
mary

and then they fly off into the sunset!


End file.
